Catrine
Catrine is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland which was formerly a centre of cotton manufacture.
The village lies on the River Ayr which previously provided water power for local industry. It is in the parish of Sorn, 2 miles (3 km) south east of Mauchline.
The A76 road lies south west of Catrine. A railway branch line to Catrine (Glasgow & South Western Railway) was one of the last to be built in Scotland in the 20th century. Catrine's station opened in 1903. The line closed to scheduled passenger services in 1943, although it continued to be used for freight and the occasional enthusiast railtour until the 1960s when the line was closed.
Catrine was constructed around one of the first cotton mills in Scotland in 1787 by Claud Alexander of Ballochmyle (who had made a not insignificant fortune as Commissary General in India) in partnership with David Dale. A plan of Catrine at that time shows the hamlet consisted of eleven buildings, including a smithy and corn mill.
In 1801, the factory was purchased by Messrs James Finlay & Co., of Glasgow. In 1802, two artificial lochs, covering between them 120 acres (0.49 km2), were constructed above Muirkirk, near the village of Glenbuck, to supply the cotton works. The business was greatly enlarged in 1823 when they added extensive bleaching works. The motive power for the works was supplied by wooden wheels, made from oak grown on Drumlanrig estate.
In 1828, the wooden wheels were replaced by two large iron wheels; steam engines of 500 horsepower (370 kW) were later added as auxiliary. When constructed, the iron wheels were the largest in Britain. The diameter of each wheel was 50 feet (15 m), 157 feet (48 m) in circumference, and 12 feet (3.7 m) broad, or 11 feet (3.4 m) within the buckets. There were 120 buckets on each wheel. Each bucket contained 11 cubic feet (0.31 m3) of water. The wheels made three revolutions per minute, and passed 360 buckets per minute, 3,960 cubic feet (112 m3) of water per wheel, 7,920 for the two, equal to 210 tons of water per minute. They were 500 nominal horsepower. These wheels were a tourist attraction in their day and continued in service until the 1940s.
...
Wikipedia